An electronic carillon system is a system which synthesizes or reproduces (when sampling is employed) the sounds of a set of bells. With the proper hardware modules, such a system is capable of imitating (i.e., synthesizing or reproducing) the sound of a single bell strike, a single swinging bell, a number of bells swinging in or out of sync with one another, and even musical compositions. Electronic carillon systems are most often found in churches, but they also can be advantageously employed in government buildings, universities, department stores, etc. Typical applications include announcing the time of day and playing music. Prior art electronic carillon systems comprise a variety of separate hardware modules, where each module is hard-wired to perform one specific function. One major disadvantage of such a system is that it is very difficult to add new functionality to a given hardware module. Another major disadvantage is that a separate module must be provided for each function, which adds to the cost of the system. A further disadvantage of prior art electronic carillon systems is that they employ magnetic tape drives that contain moving parts and thus wear out and become unreliable over time. Further background on the present invention can be found in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,511 (Schwartz), titled Electronic Bell-Tone Generating System, which issued Feb. 21, 1989 and which is hereby incorporated by reference into this specification.